The ethical hot water deepened over the weekend for President Abel Pacheco.

Last week he faced criticism because he took a free airplane ride to the Dominican Republic and accepted a membership in an exclusive club there. Then this weekend, the Spanish-language press revealed that Pacheco had a free pass on TACA Airlines.

Sunday night Channel 7 Telenoticias devoted most of its half-hour news show outlining the relationship between the president, his chief of protocol and the former tourism minister with a Spanish businessman who is becoming involved in development of the government’s Papagayo project in northwestern Guanacaste.

The businessman, Bernardo Martín Moreno, also happens to be president of a Spanish non-profit foundation that agreed to publish Pacheco’s book "Poemas y cuentos" and distribute it for free. Pacheco, his protocol chief, Jorge Arce, and former tourism minister Ruben Pacheco, traveled to Spain for the presentation of the book, said the television station.

Martín now turns up as Costa Rica’s honorary consul in his hometown of Seville, Spain.

A subsidiary of Martín’s Inmobiliaria Somersen is seeking a concession to build an 18-hole golf course, residences and a hotel, said the television station.

The television station also made these revelations:

Arce now does legal work for Martín even while still holding a job with the president. 

Ruben Pacheo has emerged as a business partner in yet another Costa Rican subsidiary of Somersen.

The television station noted that the relationship of Pacheco with the Spanish businessman has been criticized for months by Albino Vargas of the Asociación Nacional y Empleados Públicos y Privados.

The station also interviewed legislators, including one who said the relationship should be investigated by the public prosecutor.

Meanwhile Pacheco is surrendering his airline pass. He has surrendered his membership in the Dominican club.

Plane crash kills 3
at Puriscal mountain

A single-engine aircraft crashed into a mountainside near Puriscal Friday and three persons aboard died.

A passenger, Guillermo Picado Corella, 38, was an employee of Telenoticias, the Channel 7 news show.

Also dead was the pilot, Luis Cantillano Calvo, 34, and a student co-pilot, Juan Diego Marenco Herrera, 24.

All were from the San José area, and the aircraft departed the Tobias Bolaños airport in Pavas Friday morning bound for Parrita on the Pacific coast.

Rescue workers speculated that the plane crashed into the side of the Potenciana summit due to bad visibility.

The aircraft was a Cessna 206.

Special practice session
set up for Internet TOEFL

PRINCETON, N.J. —  ETS will offer a free practice test for the Internet-based Test of English as a Foreign Language to coincide with the beginning of registration for the new test July 25.

The new Internet-based test will begin Sept. 24 in the United States. In October, the test will be offered in Canada, France, Germany and Italy, and will be administered worldwide in 2006. 

Students will be able to access the test known as the TOEFL, through the Practice Online community.

The free practice test is designed to help test takers become familiar and comfortable with the new test format. The practice test will present authentic questions and allow simulation of actual testing conditions, ETS said.
 

She also is against trade pact

Dear A.M. Costa Rica: 

I have to agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Eric Scheuer from Warren, Michigan, and his letter encouraging Costa Rica to reject the proposed "free trade" treaty.  While rejecting the treaty will undoubtedly make Costa Rica a "bad guy" in the eyes of the U.S. administration, accepting it is NOT a good idea, either for Costa Rica or for the United States. 

As Mr. Scheuer pointed out, the effects of the free trade treaties already passed in the U.S. have decimated the regular workingmen (and women) of this county (the U.S.).  We have lost too many jobs to count, have not gained enough back, the ones we have gained are at minimum wage which means a working person qualifies for government aid by way of food stamps, Medicaid, and the like. 

All that I have seen as results from these treaties is huge financial benefit to large corporations, particularly the ones that contribute financially to President Bush and cronies. 

Be wary, Costa Rica!  Don't believe what Uncle Sam tells you about how great the benefits will be if only your government will accept the proposed free trade treaty.  None of it is true. 

And, once passed and accepted, there will be no way for Costa Rica to later back out.  Experience has already shown us that the provisions of the treaty with Mexico which included supposed terms regarding health, working conditions, and the environment, is/are not being enforced; that every complaint about these issues is fought; the degradation of our earth continues unabated; and all under the rubric of "free trade." 

 I hope that Costa Rica will be the one country which will actually have the backbone, the wherewithal, to Just Say No. 

And, as always, keep up your good work, A.M. Costa Rica. 

He sees no incentive 

Dear A.M. Costa Rica:

Dave McDuffie offers a good rationalization for accepting the tax plan, but still doesn't answer the question:  "Where is the incentive for an American retiree to seek residency status?" Why would anyone in their right mind want to get involved with another agency that collects taxes on income, especially one that has been trained by the IRS?  The idea is ludicrous. 

I, for one, am reasonable certain it will be simpler and less aggravating, not to mention less expensive, to forego residency and plan our vacation trips around the visa requirement.  I see no incentive to seek residency and in a way I think I will feel unwanted if the global tax is instituted. 

Today is Memorial Day, a time to honor the military dead.

In the United States there will be parades and cemetery ceremonies and a three-day weekend. Not much is happening here, except the U.S. Embassy will be closed.

The day is not a Costa Rican holiday. Lacking a military, Costa Rica still has public servants who put their life on the line. And this is a good time to think of them: Police officers, coastguardsmen, Cruz Roja paramedics, air service pilots and those in anti-drug units.

This year also marks the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II. Those ex-soldiers are fewer in number now. World War I soldiers are a handful and there are no Civil War or Spanish-American war veterans left.
Each group has left its legacy.

We have plenty of graying Vietnam vets. Middle East conflicts are creating whole hosts of new soldiers to remember — even in Costa Rica, a country that has disproportionately benefited from the sacrifices of others.

The legacy of earlier wars are democracy, although in many countries the elite disdain the mere mention of the word. They prefer an authoritarian state. So soon are the lessons of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics forgotten. That is where the arrogant elite stole the lives of citizens for 70 years.

And in many places and in many ways we remember today the silent, solitary veterans of the Cold War who helped lift an unjust and decadent government from the backs of citizens.

That also seems to be the job soldiers from a handful of nations are doing in Iraq today. Would Iraq and the entire Middle East benefit from a tradition of democracy as has Costa Rica?

Is there something to be said for a lasting peace? The tragedy is, as our veterans have learned frequently the hard way that peace is something that must be won over and over.

The world is a tough place with some very bad and highly motivated people. Thank God for the soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen and their courageous leaders.

"The cheapest might turn out to be the costliest." In other words, if the deal seems to be too good to be true, it probably is. Like that late model used car that turns out to be more bitter lemon than purring machinery after you’ve purchased it. 

The interesting thing about this dicho is not just that it’s so true, but that we’ve all ignored its warning and fallen for the ploy of getting something for nothing, and some of us have done so more then once. A friend of mine, who used to work near the Panamanian border, would buy cartons of cheap watches that had been smuggled into Costa Rica. He would then bring them to sell, at a huge profit, in San José. We all knew that those watches were not worth a plug nickel, but we kept on buying them anyhow. There was something so cool about owning contraband. 

Ironically, sometimes this dicho also works in reverse. For example, in Costa Rica health care coverage is very inexpensive and the care one receives is quite good, while in the States health insurance is astronomically expensive, and in the end often does not cover many illnesses and procedures when one needs it. 

I recently took a friend to our local hospital here in Bloomington, Indiana. Five nurses and medical technicians hovered over him attaching IVs, hooking him up to various electronic monitors, drawing blood and preparing tests. All very high tech, but I could tell from the expression on his face that he was wondering if his insurance was going to cover all of this, especially when an aspirin tablet administered in a U.S. hospital can cost upwards of $20! Then, of course, there are all the horror stories of unnecessary surgeries being performed just for the sake of bilking patients and their insurance companies out of thousands of dollars. 

We use Lo barato, sale caro, when buying almost anything, but it applies especially to large purchases such as land, a car, or a house where big sums of money are involved. We all need to take special care that we’re not being cheated. 

The way we say it By Daniel Soto

 I remember reading, not long ago, of a Costa Rican family who bought some land a few years back on the Peninsula de Osa. They never bothered to check the ownership with the National Registry Office. They built a very nice retirement house on this plot of land. But soon after the house was finished, and they had invested much of their savings, the real owners of the property showed up and demanded that they vacate the premises. There was nothing to be done, but clearly they were a Costa Rican family and should have known better than to buy land without first checking on its ownership. They were perhaps more than a bit too trusting. Sometimes it pays to be a little suspicious.

I sometimes accuse my dear older brother of being suspicious about everything, and he is. But in many cases he’s right to be so. He always reads all the fine print, and then asks questions, and often does research, but he seldom gets "taken for a ride," as they say in English. 

It may not always be a good idea to trust first impressions about everything in life, but it pays to remember caveat emptor "let the buyer beware" — to quote an old Latin saying — if your first impression about a business deal is that it seems too good to be true. 

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Hispanic Caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives has voted to oppose the Central American Free Trade Agreement, known as CAFTA.

U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva of Arizona, a member of the caucas, also voted against the measure and issued a press release later explaining his vote.

"This official decision to oppose CAFTA is a clear statement that we, as members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, believe that the Hispanic community deserves a better deal than this agreement," he said. "CAFTA is an extension of the NAFTA model, which has a terrible track record over 11 years," he said referring to th North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, México and Canada.

"CAFTA proponents have tried to speak for the Hispanic community, and have not given up their strategy of smearing CAFTA opponents as ‘anti-Hispanic.’ I am pleased that the CHC has moved to dispel this nonsense. ‘Free Trade’ as it has been practiced has hurt Latinos in the U.S. and widened the gap between rich and poor. We’re not going to let the Bush Administration tell us what is good for us."

Even though Latinos are only 13 percent of the population, they account for 47 prcent of workers who have been certified to have lost their jobs due to the North American Free Trade Agreement and thereby 

Grijalva outlined the impact the trade pact would have on immigration, a special concern for Southern Arizona:

Raúl Grijalva

"We have seen the impact of NAFTA on immigration, as the flow has increased due to 1.3 million Mexican farmers being forced off their land by cheap U.S. imports. The economies of Central America are even more dependent on agriculture, and a replication of the NAFTA experience would be devastating. When cheap U.S. imports come flooding in, Central American agricultural workers, about 50 percent of the population, will have to either take jobs in maquila sweatshops or migrate to the

U.S. Grijalva also strongly criticized the pact’s labor provisions, which only require the Central American nations to enforce their existing laws, despite the fact that these laws do not conform to the standards of the International Labor Organization. He added:

"Finally, this agreement will do nothing to protect the rich, bio-diverse environment of Central America, and will give foreign investors tools to undermine the few existing environmental protections by simply claiming that their expectations of profits were not fulfilled." 

A Costa Rican patrol boat is on its way to Isla del Coco with some 320 kilos (more than 700 pounds) of food and medicine for battered refugees from a smuggler’s vessel.

Some 86 Ecuadorians are stranded on the island after their sinking ship was towed there.

Also on board the patrol boat, the Pancha Carrasco, are an immigration official, police and a doctor from the Cruz Roja Costarricense.

The food was donated by the Comisión Nacional de Prevención de Riesgos y Atención de Emergencias.

The boat’s passengers appear to have been at sea for some nine days and adrift for three after being deserted by the crewmen who were trying to smuggle them north, presumably to the United States.

The MarViva I of  a non-profit ecological organization of a similar name, carried coastguardsmen and park rangers to the location where they encountered the boat about midnight Saturday.

Because the boat was not seaworthy, the organization said its crew towed it to Isla del Coco where they arrived about 8:30 a.m. Sunday.  Aboard are believed to be about 86 individuals including some minors. Many are suffering from sea sickness, dehydration and other maladies, said the Ministerio de Gobernación, Policía y Seguridad Pública. The boat, which does not carry a name or registration papers is believed to have departed from  Montañita, Ecuador.

Alvaro Solano and Lisbeth Vindas wrapped up the 2004-05 Circuito Nacional de Surf’s season in the Grand Finals at La Curva beach break in Playa Hermosa over the weekend with wins that again named both national champions for the second year in a row. 

"We had two beautiful, perfect surfing days to end nine months of hard work by all and the waves were good like always here,"  said Antonio Pilurzu, head of the Federacion de Tico Surf.

Surfers from all over Costa Rica competed for $7,500 worth of prize money.  The date was also competitor’s last chance to log additional points in their overall scores, which determine national rankings at this last stop on the 2004-05 tour. 

At the end of competition Saturday, each competitor’s 

Ms. Vindas of Jacó took the women’s championship with 8,500 points, and Isaac Vega of Tamarindo was named champion for juniors with 7,355 points, and 14-year-old Jairo Pérez won overall for the boys category with a total 7,550 points. 

Even though Jaco’s Ronald Reyes, formerly of Venezuela, beat out Solano for the weekend’s Grand Finals prize money of $1,800, it was Solano’s constant focus and steady plan of attack that assured him holding onto his national title. 

"I feel content because I completed my goal; to win the title.  Of course, the money would have been nice, but for me that was not the focus,"  Solano said.